Exploring Online Shopping and The Online Shopper

Online shopping began with the promise of making life easier, faster, and more convenient as a high-tech extension to enhance the in-person shopping experience. But in reality online shopping today is a digital storm of pop-ups, ads that follow us everywhere, and search results that feel out of control. In response, some shoppers have returned to brick-and-mortar stores for comfort and others only shop online for convenience, this cannot be what the pioneers of e-commerce had in mind.

It may feel like online shopping is headed down the wrong path, but innovation gives us the power to choose a new direction. When we step back, question the routines we’ve grown accustomed to, and look deeper into the online landscape, we begin to see possibilities the original pioneers may have envisioned. By reimagining how digital storefronts could work when they are guided by thoughtful design, intentional merchandising, and shopper-first logic, we uncover not only better ways to get the job done, but the true desires of online shoppers. 

At The Unforgettable Group (TUG), we are a team of retail, technology, and merchandising experts united by a single mission: to reshape the online shopping experience. We draw on decades of real-world retail knowledge, early e-commerce innovation, and modern digital tools to rebuild the shopping journey from the shopper’s point of view. Rather than forcing people to adapt to the limitations of existing platforms, we create environments that feel intuitive, curated, and inspired, places where online browsing is as engaging and meaningful as walking through a well-designed store. And just like any journey worth taking, the moment we recognize the opportunity to step off the well-worn road of online shopping and onto a brighter, more intuitive path, a whole new shopping experience begins to emerge: a ‘yellow brick road’ with discovery, clarity, and connection.

Long before the internet existed, there was a girl named Dorothy Gale who longed for color, connection, and adventure, knowing that there had to be something better over the rainbow.  Today’s e-commerce shoppers aren’t so different, isolated in a ‘colorless’ digital world, scrolling through a blur of products and promises that rarely deliver, longing for something better. Online shopping was supposed to be all knowing, provide instant access, and invigorate the shopper, but instead most are left overwhelmed, uninspired, and dreaming of what could be.

L. Frank Baum used his imagination to create a new land, allowing him to share his ideas about the world as he saw it. We’ve borrowed that creation to express how we see online shopping today and what it has the potential to become. The Wizard of Oz and its Yellow Brick Road take us on a journey where we examine the current state of online shopping, gain a deeper understanding of the online shopper, and are inspired to build a strong digital foundation that can transform the way shopping is done. A world where the shopper is the focus, technology enhances the experience, and there is magic in discovery.

At The Unforgettable Group, we believe it’s time to drop the house on the old ways of how we shop online and start over, just as Dorothy’s journey began when the farmhouse landed squarely on the Wicked Witch of the East. We are ready to make our mark redefining how online shopping is done and click our heels together as we head in a new direction down our yellow brick road.

When we set out to change the way online shopping was done, it became clear that we had to go back to the beginning. Not the beginning of the internet, but the beginning of modern shopping itself. We had to describe, plainly and without hesitation, what is not working and articulate what online shopping could be if we stripped away the noise, the clutter, and the business-first technology that has overshadowed the shopper for far too long.

This is no small task. We are describing a virtual world that no one can truly see, one shaped by hidden algorithms, disjointed interfaces, mountains of search results, and a strange irreverence toward the human being doing the shopping. If a shopper walked into a retail store and black socks began flying toward them simply because they searched for them last week, they would click their ruby slippers and head straight for the exit. Yet online, we have come to accept these odd behaviors as normal. The expectations have shifted, not because shoppers asked for less, but because the digital world enticed them like magic, but offered them a very odd shopping path.

Our team has lived, built, and shaped retail for decades. We were there in the early days of mass retail, when merchandising meant walking the aisles, feeling the energy of the floor, listening to customers, and learning from the leaders who defined a generation of retail excellence. We witnessed the rise of the modern superstore, the evolution of giant malls, and the first hints of the e-commerce revolution that would change everything. And we didn’t just watch it happen. We were part of it. We grew up in it. We earned our understanding of what works, what doesn’t, and what gets lost when shopping becomes a series of clicks instead of a journey.

That experience matters, because it gives us the right and we think the responsibility to write about what comes next in the world of online shopping. We believe the soul of shopping has always been about discovery, delight, clarity, and connection. Somewhere along the way, that soul was overshadowed by systems built for transactions instead of people. But it doesn’t have to stay that way.

To rebuild the online shopping experience, we needed a new framework. Surprisingly we found the parallel with one of the most iconic journeys ever told. The Wizard of Oz is more than a story. It is a roadmap of challenges, companions, obstacles, shortcuts, illusions, and revelations. Just like the online shopping landscape, it is full of characters and forces that shape the traveler’s experience, for better or worse.

And so the Yellow Brick Road became our metaphor for reimagining the journey to a better way to shop online. Not as a nostalgic reference, but as a practical, relatable way to explain what shoppers face online and how we can make that journey better. Because when people understand the journey, they can see what needs to be fixed, what should be protected, and what can be transformed for the greater good of shoppers everywhere.

Now, as we begin exploring each element of the Wizard of Oz from the characters, , the challenges, the power, and the magic. We will take you on a journey where you will see just how uniquely it mirrors the online shopping world we navigate today, and how a new kind of road can lead us somewhere better.